With Clean up the World 2016 a month away today preparations of equipment and other important materials are now underway. We are now consolidating teams and sites and urge anyone interested to please get in touch soon. Preferably by email to: esg@gibtelecom.net. We shall be holding an awareness event in town on the 20th just before the Clean up where we hope to share information and raise the profile of Clean up issues. This will be our twelfth campaign in Gibraltar as part of a global movement that inspires grassroots action to help local environments everywhere. With the core theme being: Our Place, Our Planet, Our Responsibility, we believe this campaign is as relevant today as when we first started, and call upon the community to lend its support as it has done in past years. The clean up itself will be held on the 24th September and volunteers and team leaders will be expected to attend the main planning meeting in early September.

The issue of LNG has been in the news again. Those who follow our work will know we have been closely monitoring this project and have given our views publicly at each and every stage. We have held recent meetings with GibElec regarding on-going works at the new Power Station site, interested in ensuring that the measures we called for last year, for Best Available Technology to be applied, will be seen through. These relate to electrostatic precipitators, stack monitoring, and adequate assessment of diesel use to encompass a wider time period than envisaged in the present studies. Basically to limit pollution affecting residential areas closest to the plant. Separately we are also keen to see the COMAH assessment and contingency plans on the LNG storage and its operational use; this remains pending.

The Chief Ministers interview this week regarding LNG bunkering and any possible use of the North Mole terminal in this regard has not featured in any discussion/assessment or exhibition held to date that we have been a part of. Indeed we have had assurances that the east side would be the area to be used for LNG bunkering, and even then, after careful assessments. We are taking this up once again with Government.

In the past few weeks Western Beach has been in the news and much-debated on social media. The key focus has been on the extraordinary and mountainous volumes of seaweed amassing on the shores of this beach. It has failed to make the news, however, on the levels of sewage contamination, which has rightfully caused red flags to fly on a number of occasions, and continues to this day.

While past summers have seen a reprieve during the bathing season from dumping of very high volumes of sewage at Western Beach waters from La Lineas’ infamous storm drain, which occurs all year round, and since 2010, this time we are in the middle of a bathing season, and we are clocking up exceptionally high levels of E Coli and intestinal enterococci microorganisms, both from faecal matter, which pose a grave threat to public health.

We would like to draw attention to this current polluting activity which can be seen on the Environmental Agency’s website and should, in our view, result in beach closure if this is not eliminated.

Finally, the DPC meets next week on the 31st August at 9.30am at the John Mackintosh Hall. The agenda is up on the egov.gi site and contains a number of interesting applications that will be discussed. Remember these meetings are held publicly at the Charles Hunt Room.